Corteo

I am winding down from a very long day. Actually, I'm not winding down. I'm still very much wired. I was finally able to get to sleep about 2:30am last night. I woke up at 7am, worked from 8-6, ate dinner with my friends, then drove us to the site at Fair Park where Corteo was being performed. After the show, I came back to my store and worked until midnight. I'm still very untired...perhaps because of that vanilla breve I had at 11.

Corteo was magnificent, as expected. It is not my favorite Cirque show, but it was extremely well executed...until a performer seriously injured himself in the finale.

In the finale there were 6 men's gymnastic-type high bars set up on stage, four of them creating a square, and one each on either side. The men were gymnasticizing all over the place, and then one guy had a solo. He did the usual maneuvers you'd see on tv, but when he was doing his dismount, he did a double back flip and caught the front part of his legs above the ankles and below the mid-shin on the bars, then smacked to the mat. He didn't move, and a few of his fellow performers rushed to his aid. One of the performers made a big "X" sign with his arms a couple of times, and various members of the stage crew rushed on stage. The audience was deathly silent; only the noise of the heating system could be heard. A person brought out a backboard, and the guy still wasn't moving. An announcement was made that one of the performers had been injured, and the performance was stopped momentarily, as though we couldn't see that for ourselves. One of the crew members talked to a couple of performers nearest the wings, and then those performers started a 'telephone chain', communicating some sort of information to the other 30-odd people on stage. It took less than a minute for them to do this.

After the injured guy was strapped into the backboard and taken off stage, we all applauded for him, just like you do when a person gets injured at a sporting event, and then the music started up again. The cast stood near the edges of the stage, and they proceeded to take their bows, signifying the end of the performance. We all gave a standing ovation, because they really needed that support right then.

As I was leaving, my friends and other people around me were saying things like 'I hope he's ok'. He was so obviously NOT ok. I'm sure it hurt like hell to crash his shins against that bar, then drop 10 feet to the ground and land on his face.

As we were heading out to my car, the ambulance was trying to get to the tents. I wish the guy a speedy and full recovery.